SOURCE: “Method and Madness in Cyrano de Bergerac's Voyage dans la lune,” in French Forum, Vol. 2, No. 3, September 1977, pp. 224-37.

In the essay below, DeJean explores the dialogic narrative structure of Les Etats et empires de la lune, which leaves unresolved the contradictions between the different philosophies the work examines.

Few works of French literature have known fates as curious as that suffered by Cyrano de Bergerac's Voyage dans la lune. The original edition of 1657 was mutilated by the efforts of Cyrano's friend Le Bret to exempt the work from censure. As a result of his solicitous cutting, the unexpurgated text was lost for over 250 years. Even after the publication by Frédéric Lachèvre in 1921 of the first edition of the integral text from the Paris manuscript, recognition of the extent of Cyrano's intellectual daring was slow to come¹. Those critics who do examine the philosophical...